Tuesday, February 15, 2011

I've been knitting round and round in grey, and working on a chart for my colour-work tam. I did finish spinning 100g of dyed Perendale. Our students arrived back this week, and today all the staff teaching in Fashion gave a miniPecha Kucha, 10 slides each lecturer and 20 seconds to talk each about each slide. I made sure most of mine were about knitting. Then all our fashion students from all years of the programs are given a three day Project runway style team project. Three times I was asked if I 'happen to have any knitting needles' ? Score!
When I knit things using other peoples patterns - the process is straightforward. I select a pattern, and some yarn, think about colours and go for it. Oh - with me there are usually little changes where I make it differently, or big changes ... but the process is quick. When I knit things that I 'design' - the process is a whole lot different. First there is the research, the stage where I seem to spend a lot of time looking and recording ideas and options and possible directions, and think about all that I find. Then the process transitions to one of planning, and experimentation, and testing, and deciding .. and all that takes time. Since my last post I have been looking at motifs that could be used in my Tam, I've been looking at Tams, and hats and colour work, I've been looking at all sorts of colour combinations and what sorts of arrangements of colours look best to me - and I've been thinking about why they look best. The Lecturer in me asks the question : "What makes it work?". So there has been a lot of dealing with knitting, but really only a few rounds knit. But I'm ready to start, I think I have a design that will work with the colours I have and look good ... only time and knitting will tell. I felt like a student this time, as the knitters study group meets on Saturday ... for the second workshop on knitting a Tam, and I had only completed my ribbing.
Which leaves only the spinning, this once was a hand dyed roving of perindale ... now it is a 100g of singles ready to ply. The next stage is to wind this into a center pull ball, after it has sat for a few days to relax. My plan is to ply from both ends of the centre pull ball so I get a 2ply yarn, and after that I'm not so sure .....I really should be knitting what I spin, as I do enjoy knitting with handspun.

3 comments:

I know what you mean about designing being slower, although I also find that transitioning from one part of a garment that I'm designing to another feels more intuitive than with someone else's pattern (perhaps because I have a clearer picture in my head of where I'm going?). I can't wait to see how the spinning plies up! And now I'm off to check out that book...

I can't say that I've really designed anything from scratch, so I don't know much about the timeframe for that - I can imagine, though. For me, I do spend a lot of time at the pre-knitting stage if I am going to use handspun for a commercial pattern. To find the right pattern with the correct gauge (or to make allowances), fudge the stitch count if necessary, as well as to work out any changes I intend making (well, those I think about beforehand, anyway) all take me much time. Sometimes I feel as if I am redesigning the whole thing. When I go back to knitting with commercial yarn it seems rather a breeze - almost like a holiday!Thanks for the heads up on the book. I've reserved it at the library. :)

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Me

I knit, there is more, I spin too, make books, and play with ink printing, and I work, and have a family. There are two knitting groups, one spinning group and I love process ...on Ravelry I'm Knitfrogknit. Sometimes I get to teach knitting things. Lately there has been a growing interest in in vintage fountain pens, inks, and old fashioned pencils ... truly I am a geek in these things.

On my book shelf

Fish count : 144 + 13

I'm knitting Knitting Arrows Fish blanket, my version is on show @ Ravelry, here, along with many many others.So I have 144 sewn together and 13 ready to add, making a total of .... 157 small fish.I'm using up the left over yarn sock yarn, and started this in January 2007. It is a slow-food project, aimed at a long term outcome, not a quick weekend knit.